Spanish is a Romance language originated in the Castile region of Spain. There are now up to hundreds of millions Spanish native speakers around the world. Here in this article, we will show you some interesting facts about Spanish language. Let's check out!
Interesting facts about Spanish language
1. Spanish ranks as the world's No.2 language in terms of the number of people speak it as their first language.
According to Ethnologue, there are about 329 million Spanish native speakers. 1.2 billion Chinese speakers and 328 million English native speakers.
2. Spanish is the fourth most widely spoken language
Spanish has at least 3 million native speakers in each of 44 countries, behind English (112), French (60), and Arabic (57).
3. Spanish is part of the Indo-European family of languages, which are spoken by more than a third of the world's population.
4. To the people who speak it, Spanish is sometimes called español and sometimes castellano (the Spanish equivalent of "Castilian").
The labels used vary regionally and sometimes according to political viewpoint.
5. Spanish is one of the world's most phonetic languages.
6. The Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española), created in the 18th century, is widely considered the arbiter of standard Spanish. It produces authoritative dictionaries and grammar guides.
7. Although Spanish originated on the Iberian Peninsula as a descendant of Latin, today it has far more speakers in Latin America, having been brought to the New World by Spanish colonialization.
8. Beside Latin, Arabic also has a great influence on Spanish.
9. Spanish and English share a lot of vocabulary through cognates. This is owing to the fact that both languages derive many of their words from Latin as well as Arabic.